


And All In Spite Of You

by spockandawe



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Good Intentions, M/M, Physical Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6630151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is it, what you’ve been waiting for. A fresh start. With hands. And a <em>face</em>. You mean hey, the Council only started promising you those things two or three thousand years ago, but what’s a few thousand years between friends? And going from a couple centuries’ worth of daily beatings to this, well. It’s enough to make you smile—<em>which you can actually do now!</em></p><p>So! New start. Hands. Face. Actual medical care! Times are good! You’d almost forgotten what your cockpit looked like unbroken. You’d definitely forgotten what it was like to see the world through uncracked optics! And hey, you’ve even got your guns back. You were all used to having loose wires hanging down against your chest, it was, you know… nostalgic or something. You should probably tell the Council that, right? A little shared humor? What could possibly go wrong!</p>
            </blockquote>





	And All In Spite Of You

**Author's Note:**

> I've been falling in love with Rotorstorm's character, but I only really processed the Iaconian Aerial Academy part of his backstory last night, and when I went to look up who this Jetstream fellow was, I hadn't had a _clue_ that he was Whirl. Whirl was already one of my favorite characters, and it was fascinating thinking about how that piece of backstory integrated into his character. I _knew_ I had to write something for these guys, and motivation and energy lined up, here we are. This was a really, really interesting story to work on, and I'm really glad I wrote it.

This is it, what you’ve been waiting for. A fresh start. With hands. And a _face_. You mean hey, the Council only started promising you those things two or three thousand years ago, but what’s a few thousand years between friends? And going from a couple centuries’ worth of daily beatings to this, well. It’s enough to make you smile— _which you can actually do now!_

So! New start. Hands. Face. Actual medical care! Times are good! You’d almost forgotten what your cockpit looked like unbroken. You’d definitely forgotten what it was like to see the world through uncracked optics! And hey, you’ve even got your guns back. You were all used to having loose wires hanging down against your chest, it was, you know… nostalgic or something. You should probably tell the Council that, right? A little shared humor? What could possibly go wrong!

And you know what, you’ve also quietly filed for a change of name. Putting the past really, _really_ behind you. Trying to move on. Find your feet without all of—without all of everything weighing you down. You think that maybe, just maybe, someone on the Council feels bad that you spent a couple hundred years getting almost killed in jail for the horrible crime of following the orders they gave you, because—yeah. Change of name went through just fine. Who's Whirl? You’re Jetstream now.

Doesn’t feel like your name yet. Maybe it will soon, but not yet. But it’s better this way. Definitely better. Hands don’t feel like yours either, and neither does the face. But you’ve got a chance to grow into them now. Nobody’s gonna be able to pick you out of a crowd of other fliers now. Nobody’s gonna be able connect you to that _one_ guard, you know, the one you read about in that one book. Worth getting used to the new you, just for that. Nobody will know who you are—except the Council, yeah, but surely you can expect them to use that knowledge only in your best interest, right? Right? Ahahaha, _whatever_ , not like you have a choice, and you’re in a better position than you ever expected to be in again.

Plus, even if the hands don’t feel like yours yet… _you have hands_. You haven’t—done much with them yet. You don’t know if you want to. Or, you do. Maybe? But you haven’t. One of the first things you did once you had some time to yourself was go to your computer and look up some tools—just. Real simple stuff. Basic. Cheap. Just enough that you could build a stupid little digital clock. You left them up there for a few hours, just thinking about it. But you didn’t buy them.

You guess part of it is that… you’re a little worried. Didn’t go great last time you tried to make watches, remember? And you had permission for it, back then. Even if it’s just a hobby now, not a job, you—You don’t want to think about how they might react. So! Right! You’re not making watches because you have better things to do than waste your time worrying about silly old hobbies from thousands of years ago. That's why.

Instead, you waste your time on your job! Because you have a job now! It’s functionist. Which, hey, no surprise there, right? And it’s a better job than you ever expected after your… _exciting_ history with the government. It’s not exactly Aerial Corps, but let’s be honest, it’s _basically_ Aerial Corps. But it is a little better than it was then, because now you’re a flight instructor at the Iaconian Aerial Academy.

You! A teacher! Somebody in the Council must have taken a hit to the brain module, right? Haha, no, you kid. You might be new to teaching, but you’ve always been a good flier. One of the absolute best. And would you ever brag? Shh, no need to answer that, hypothetical question. And you’ve got plenty of experience in the military _and_ in law enforcement, so looks like you’ve got some in-demand skills ready for the teaching.

And teaching means students! So many students! Well. Not that many, all things considered, but still! A nonzero number of students is pretty significant in comparison to your past experience. All of them are young. Everyone old enough to count as _old_ has already been drafted (forced? _very strongly nudged?_ ) into the military for ages. And yeah, most of them, you can really tell that they’re fresh out of the freezer. It’s kind of funny, in a sad way. You guess that once upon a time, you didn’t know how to use your wings either? But you have a hard time believing you were ever _this_ bad.

Lucky for you, you’re a _combat_ flight instructor, so someone else has polished the worst of the rough edges off them by the time they get to your classes. Still pretty sad. But right! That’s what you’re here for. You and your incredible skills. Tough but fair, that’s you. By which you mean, you’re tough on everyone, so it’s fair? You don’t actually know what that saying means. Hm. Point is, you’re demanding. You ask a lot of them and make sure they _give_ it, because if they’re lazy with the training and hit the field, well. You’ve seen how careful the government is with their soldiers. If they can’t keep up, they’re gonna die.

And it’s not all bad! Even if they learn slowly, they’re _learning_. And some of your students might even count as half-decent fliers. Rotorstorm especially. You don’t want to puff up his ego too much—an overconfident soldier is a _dead_ soldier—but he’s _good_. Tough to handle most of the situations you throw at him. He’s a good example in class, and he’s consistently doing much better than everyone else. You use him to point out what things he’s doing right, how to avoid mistakes the other recruits are making—but see, you haven’t even had him as a student for long, and you can already see him getting vain over it.

No good. _No good_. Watch, if he tries to take the field with an attitude like that, he’ll land a commander he annoys so much he’ll get sent right out one of those missions where the officers are hpoing for some nice strategic 'acceptable losses'. And he might be better than the rest of his class, but he’s not good enough to survive a battle, not even close. But you don’t want to talk about how good he is in front of the class, then turn right around and talk about how _bad_ he is—Everything is complicated. You need a teacher to tell you how to be a teacher.

 _But okay_. You work out a system. In front of the other students, you talk about him relative to the other students! So then you can say things like how if you’d been using live ammo, Rotorstorm would have been the only one to make it through the course, and the rest of them are going to get shot out of the sky on their first mission if they don’t shape up. Harsh? Sure! True? _Yes_.

And so Rotorstorm doesn’t have too much of a chance to get full of himself, you pull him aside that night, corner him, and break down everything he did wrong. He’s reckless, for one thing—he’s got good instincts, but he takes too many chances, and you only have to get unlucky once. And when he’s paying attention to the ground, he’s got no head for where everyone else is in the sky. He almost took out Crosscheck by accident, right after takeoff, and you bet he didn’t even notice. And so on.

It’s good! You can see him deflating right there while you talk. And that’s a nice setup, right? The rest of his class knows how far they have to go to catch up to Rotorstorm, and Rotorstorm knows just how far _he_ still has to go. _You win at teaching_.

Only, not quite. Because Rotorstorm is just as vain as ever. Maybe even more vain, actually. You catch him bragging to the other students practically every day. Even when he knows you’re watching. You don’t know what he’s trying to get at. But you guess that means it’s good that you’ve started having these talks with him. If that’s how he was going to act, at least you’re keeping him kind of in control. It turns into a nice little nightly ritual with you two. In front of the class, you talk about what he did right, and then at night, you tell him everything he did _wrong_.

And it’s working! He was already at the top of his class, by a long shot. But now, under your mentoring (your mentoring!), he’s widening that gap further and further. He’s got a real gift. He’s not cut out to just be rank and file cannon fodder. You’d bet good money that he’s going to get a command and he’s going to get it young. He was already good, but he’s hearing the things you tell him and he’s _fixing_ them.

So you push harder, of course! If he’s keeping up when you push him to be good, then he can keep up when you push him to be _great_. He’s something special, he really is, if he’d only _listen_. No, that’s not quite right. He is listening. But he’s constantly, _constantly_ talking back to you. You’re trying to explain that he’s overconfident, that no matter how good he is in these exercises, no matter how skilled he thinks he is, he’s still nowhere near good enough to take the field with the military yet.

Now… you think he’s trying to be funny. Okay, that’s not fair. He’s incredibly funny. And clever. Almost makes you wish you didn’t have a mouth again so that you’d be better at keeping a straight face. But see, the more he jokes about the things you’re trying to correct him about, you think—the more cracks jokes, the less he takes you seriously. And that’s no good. You have a job! You have to teach him how to be _better_.

Maybe he’s still hearing the things you tell him. He is improving. You tell him where he’s wrong and he fixes it. But he isn’t _respecting_ you. On a personal level? This would be fine! You’re a big fan of talking back to people you shouldn't be talking back to. See: the rest of your life. But you can’t let this slide. It’s bad enough in your class, and you… don’t connect well with most of the other teachers, but you overhear that he’s starting to act up in his other classes too. And you’re at least partly in charge of him. You’re _teaching_ him. He’s learning so well with, you know. Everything else. So can you fix this too? At the very least, you can’t let it slide.

Yeah, ooh, ~you can’t let it slide.~ That might sound nice and intimidating if you had a single solitary clue about what to do about it. You—don’t like to think at your time in the Aerial Corps. There were plenty of reasons you begged out of there to go try watchmaking, but your commanders definitely played a major part. So, right. Mm. Not like that.

What else do you even have to work from? You guess—when you started working for the Council, maybe? You were coming right out of Dead End and straight from empurata, and you… probably weren’t the easiest mech to deal with. No, yeah, the more you think about it, the better fit it is.

See, you just knew about fighting on the streets, you didn’t know left from right when it came to police work and law enforcement. No real school for _that_ — or maybe there is? But you never heard of one. No, they sent you out to work, and paired you with Kroma so he could teach you what’s what. You had your issues with him at first, sure, but he just had to show you who was in charge a time or ten, and you straightened right out.

And it works! It really does. So, okay, you and Rotorstorm have your nightly talks, right? He’s your star pupil, even when he’s being a pain in the aft, and you’re not going to let up on the teaching just because he’s being difficult. You have _knowledge to impart_ , and you can already tell that none of his classmates will ever be half as good as he’ll be. If, you know. If he’d shut up and listen.

So! The next time he starts talking back when you’re correcting his mistakes for the day, you reach up and put a hand on his shoulder (hand! ha! you’re still not over having hands again) and hold him right there. Not _that_ hard, but just enough force to start tending his plating. You haven’t hurt him, but see, you _could_. But you haven't. And he gets it! He really does! He’s quiet and respectful for oh, a couple whole days before he even tries to give you trouble again.

He does slip again. Which isn’t a big deal, you were expecting it. He held out for longer than you thought he would, even! You can’t tell him that you’re proud without shooting this whole thing in the foot, but hey. You really are proud of him. When you’re telling him how he would have gotten his whole battalion gunned down if he’d tried a maneuver like he pulled today, every time you pause, he starts muttering about one of your lessons from last week—but all you have to do is rest a hand on his shoulder, and he quiets right on down.

That gets you by for a while. Doesn’t last. Eventually just the _threat_ stops working. You’ve got him in a quiet corner, talking over his aim when he’s shooting in his alt mode—decent, better than his class, but needs to be _even better_ —and he won’t stop talking back to you. Not even when you put a hand on his shoulder. Not even when you begin to squeeze.

Fine, then. You drop your hand, give him half a moment to wonder if you’re backing down—then you slam him up against the wall. You leave your arm across his throat and continue explaining things for him. You stay calm, cool, collected. You don’t let him go until you’re finished, and then you just turn and walk away.

You’re a little worried for a while, you didn’t want him to push you that far. But you know, it seems to really be working! He’s learning from what you tell him. Learning faster than any of his classmates. He’s still got a couple years left at the academy, but you already know he’s going to graduate with top honors. Ha! Imagine him in the future telling people he was trained by _you_. Imagine that being a thing! A thing people tell each other! Why yes, I was taught by Jetstream at the Iaconian Aerial Academy. You too? Yes, yes, definitely the defining experience of my military career. You’ve been trying to find your footing, but you’re starting to think you really like this teaching business.

Trouble is, while you’re pushing Rotorstorm to improve, he’s pushing right back. Just means you need to adapt to meet the needs of the situation, right? You and Kroma had some differences too, back when he was teaching you. So now you’ve just got to amp things up until you and Rotorstorm click, right? So maybe you have to step things up a little. He starts rolling his optics when you pin him to the wall, so you mix it up, punch him _hard_ in the stomach and just go on teaching while he’s curled forward, gagging.

And it looks like things are still going fine. He’s still absorbing everything you tell him, and you can see him improving every single day. He’s going to be _amazing_ once he’s done learning. He’s your star student, no question, and you’re incredibly (quietly, _privately_ ) proud of him.

Right! So that’s just all the more reason not to let up with these nightly lessons. You can’t let him down now, he _needs_ you. And these days, you keep a tougher attitude with him, since he’s shown he can handle it. Even when he’s being respectful (not often), you keep him pinned pretty close to the wall. Brace a hand over his shoulder. Lean in close and loom over him. You’re pretty pleased with that setup! You’re not punishing him, because he hasn’t done anything that needs to be punished—but you are reminding him who’s in charge here, reinforcing that good old command structure. Nice and fair!

Anyways, it’s one of those nights when he goes off-script in a major way. You’re doing your looming thing, because it’s nice being tall. You have lots of built-in looming potential, why not use it? And you’ve got your elbow on the wall next to his head, so you’re in nice and close, barely any distance between you and him. Your head is propped on your hand while you talk to him, friendly and casual. This is the routine now, you both know how it goes. He gets his positive feedback in class, gets his negative feedback privately with you.

So right, he’s just standing there, listening, business as usual. And listening respectfully, which is less usual! He’s doing great tonight, no backtalk, nothing, just watching you while you talk. And then, um. Well. His hands come up to rest on your waist.

You are… lost. Completely. _Entirely_. You lose your train of thought and whatever you were saying trails off into silence. You’re standing right where you were, looking at Rotorstorm. And he’s right there looking up at you. He’s grinning too, his hands still sitting there on your waist, right above your hips. Though you think his smile looks—shaky? Nervous? Wow, you—yeah, um. No two ways about it, you just… run away.

You go straight back to your hab suite and try to figure out what just _happened_. Because—okay, you know what that looked like. You think. You mean—it was pretty straightforward, wasn’t it? Unless you’re reading him wrong? Which is… plausible. Likely? Let’s face facts, you have never been good at people. Still, this—you stay awake too late and still go to recharge before you have an answer. But you think Rotorstorm might. You know. _Like_ you.

You don’t know what to do! What do people even do when this kind of thing happens? You don’t know, you’ve never been involved with someone that way before. What should you _do_? What if he _likes_ you? You hadn’t really thought about him that way, but—But maybe—You don’t know, you’d never taken the time to consider it, and you don’t even know how you feel. You’re such a mess that you even end up skipping one of your nightly lessons with Rotorstorm. It’s bad of you, you should be more professional than that, but you’re just too nervous.

Okay. _Okay_. The night after that you pull yourself together. Class as usual. _Lesson_ as usual. Extra lesson, even, so you can make up for the things you weren’t there to tell him yesterday. You don’t think you—quite manage. Like usual. You stumble here and there, catch yourself watching him, just trying to figure out what he’s even _thinking_.

 _Right_. Come on, you need to step it up. You need to _teach_ him, or he’ll end up dead before he’s a century old because you didn’t do your job. So the night after that you manage business as usual. Same old, same old. You’re looming and talking, Rotorstorm is standing and listening. Until he starts making those little asides again, and right, guess it must be time to show him who’s in charge again.

You’re reaching for his arm—you can dent him up pretty well there without affecting his joints or his transformation—but before you can actually make contact, he makes contact with _you_.

It’s just his hands on your waist at first. Which, ha. You’re—used to that, right? No need to get flustered. You’ve just about almost nearly almost gotten your act together again— And then he shifts. Hesitates. You’re standing there frozen, you still don’t have a clue how to react. And Rotorstorm stretches up to kiss you.

Oh. _Oh_. You—He—Well, that settles the question of whether he likes you, doesn’t it? Now you only (only!) have to figure out how to process that this is a thing that’s happening to you. You don’t know what to do. With your face. With your hands. With your _mouth_. It’s been—it’s been _centuries_ since you even considered kissing anyone. Or, well. Nuzzling them with your face bits, which was about the best you could do for a while. The last time… the last time was when you tried to kiss Kroma, and well. That didn’t really work out. All things considered.

It’s different now. With Rotorstorm. It takes you too long to figure out where to put your hands, but you let them settle onto his waist. Just like his hands on you. You hardly remember kissing even works, but you bend down—so he doesn’t have to stretch—and let him press his lips to yours, over and over and over. The time passes so quickly you can hardly believe it. Before you know it, it’s _late_ , and the two of you are breaking apart to go back to your quarters for recharge.

It changes things. It really does. But—but of course you have a duty to Rotorstorm. You’re his _teacher_. So you keep the lessons going. Well, you try. The selfish, greedy part of you is more than happy to be distracted with, with touches and kisses and everything Rotorstorm is willing to give you. But the lessons have to go on too—you try to, to find a balance. Perhaps if you let him spend a night just holding you, you adjust for it the next few nights—punishing him for little missteps you might have overlooked before. Maybe he makes a little joke about how you’re right, he _should_ already know these things you haven’t taught him yet. And instead of just denting his plating, you knock him to the floor, leave him down there with a foot on his chest while you explain why anyone with common sense would have _known_ these things without needing to be _taught_.

It evens out, you think. You try. It’s too easy to lose yourself in softness with him. You punish _yourself_ too, forcing yourself to stick to the lessons he needs to learn, even if you’d rather let him hold you, even if you’d rather pin him to the wall and just let yourself kiss him for hours and hours.

So you think it’s working. You haven’t seen any problems, you don’t think? And you haven’t heard any arguments from Rotorstorm. The two of you work together so well, that you… just don’t need to talk much. You fit together clean and perfect, without any trouble. You move together between lessons and, and _romance_ as easy as anything. You’re on the same wavelength when it comes to everything.

He’s even taking this slow, just like you’d want him to. If, um. If you ever brought it up. You—haven’t _said_ anything about it. Exactly. Because it’s _embarrassing_ , but you’ve—okay, so you’ve never exactly been in a proper _relationship_ before. There was that mess with Kroma way back when, yes, okay, let’s forget that ever happened, moving along. But other than that? You don’t… connect well with other mechs. You’ve never had anyone _want_ you before, and you’re still struggling to keep up. So you’re glad Rotorstorm is taking his time. Not to, ha, get ahead of yourself, but _okay let’s jump way too far ahead and what if this is forever_? What if you’ve got millions of years with him to look forward to? You’re not admitting this out loud, _ever_ , but you’re really happy that the two of you are taking the time and just… savoring this. Together.

It is hard, sometimes. You wish that maybe you weren’t his teacher, that there didn’t need to be lessons at all, and you and he could just focus on each other without the academy getting in the way. But that isn’t really fair, is it? Without the academy, you never would have met each other. And without being his teacher, you never would have seen his potential, there never would have been his private lessons, and there never would have been _this_. So doesn’t that make it all worthwhile?

And it reminds you that the lessons are _important_. You can’t let them slip now, especially. You don’t just have a duty to train him, in some abstract whatever way. You’re painfully aware now that if you stop, if you leave him half-trained, if he goes into the field like this and dies, it will be your fault. But before the—before _everything_ , you were teaching him every night. And now? You try, you really do, but it’s so easy to let yourself be distracted from the lessons when he reaches out to you, pulls you up against him, interrupts you with kisses when you’re trying to tell him what he’s done wrong.

So you try even harder to make up for it. He isn’t cooperative. And you… understand. You wish you could indulge yourself and give in to him whenever he tries to take things down a, a romantic path. You can’t. You hold yourself to strict rules. If you’ve decided that this _has_ to be a night for teaching, you don’t let him distract you. And if he keeps trying after you turn him down, you teach him a physical lesson too. You force yourself to have even less patience for his jokes than ever before. There’s years and _years_ ahead for you to enjoy how clever he can be, but you won’t let him get away with this now. And if he doesn’t try to start anything romantic, then—you could, yourself. You could. But you do your best to stick to your regular lessons unless he initiates things on his own.

It isn’t perfect. He still distracts you sometimes. You’ve never had anyone _kiss_ you this way, and it’s so hard to resist him when he’s so sweet with you. And he’s more difficult than ever when it comes to the actual teaching. In class and in private. You can hardly make a single point without him feeling like he has to cut in with something witty. You aren’t going to punish him in front of his classmates, not when you’re still using him as an example of what they need to achieve. So you save up the punishments, give them in private. You don’t want to humiliate him in front of people who admire him, it can just be your secret together.

Between the trouble he’s causing in class, the trouble he’s causing in your private lessons, and the trouble he causes when he won’t let you _teach_ him, you’re—you’re getting worried. He’s forcing you to punish him on, on nearly a nightly basis now. Doesn’t he understand what he’s _doing_? It’s always a reaction to things he’s done. Always. He’s smart, can’t he see the pattern? You can’t let him get away with anything, not with the way he already pushes back at you. It’s escalating—the other night you shattered one of his optics, and another time you broke his fin before you realized what you’d done—but he isn’t backing down and you _can’t_ back down. No matter how the two of you feel about each other, you’re his teacher, and this is _important_.

It keeps you up late, worrying about him. But he must understand. Right? If he was angry at you, he wouldn’t try to kiss you, would he? And if the two of you can just make it through to his graduation, things will be fine then, you know they will. Or—he’s supposed to go off to the army, then. But he’s good. As he is _now_ , he’s one of the best fliers out there, even if you can’t tell him that. What if he stayed here, at the academy? He’d be a good teacher. And you could tell him everything you’ve learned since _you_ started teaching.

You tell yourself that. Just a few more years, just a few more years. It keeps you steady through his lessons. Just a few more years before you can stop. Just a few more years before it’s just you and him, forever. Even though things are getting worse _now_ , they’ll have to get better eventually. They _will_.

Then there’s the last lesson. You’re trying to correct him over practically nothing, just a stupid little point, and he won’t stop arguing back that yes, he _did_ know where everyone in his squadron was during the day’s flight. Obviously, he _didn’t_. But he won’t let it go and admit you’re right, so, business as usual, you go to hit him. And he catches your hand.

Both of you are frozen for a moment, staring at his hand around yours. You turn your head to look at him and he flinches, says, “No, I—”

Too late. Your other hand is already coming up, and you punch him right in the face. You think you hear something crack. Another punch to the stomach and he doubles over, then you kick his legs out from under him and put him on the ground.

He tries to get away, crawling backwards. But you’ve got him. You kneel down over him, and he cringes, his arms in front of his face. He says, “I, I—I didn’t, I didn’t mean—”

You catch both his hands in one of yours, move them away. Then you punch him again. Again. _Again_. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. He doesn’t understand this, doesn’t understand _anything_ , after _all this time_ he doesn’t get why you’re teaching him these lessons, why it’s _so important._

He still doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand _any of it._ He fights to get away from you, even now! He tries to pull his hands free, to shove you off him and crawl away. You grab him by the rotor blades and throw him into a wall. He lies there, stunned while you climb up and stand over him. You’re ready for him to try making more worthless excuses. _Again_. But perhaps he has learned something, because he doesn’t even try. He just lies there, cowering, covering his head and refusing to meet your optics.

You punish him anyways. He’s covering his head? You kick his chest, shatter his cockpit. You kick him and _kick_ him until he moves his arms to shield himself there. And _then_ you kick him in the face.

You do try to get control of yourself, then. He’s never needed this much of a punishment before, but, but surely now he must be able to see why you _have_ to do this? If he refuses to listen, this is the only thing you have _left_.

He stumbles up to his feet. You give him time. If he’s learned something from this, then it’s all worthwhile, you can be patient. He braces himself against the wall, watching you through the energon dripping down his face. You can see several shattered dentae— you must have hit him harder than you thought.

But Rotorstorm meets your optics for a moment—and tries to run. He goes limping down the hallway, even though he, he _must_ know better by now! Hasn’t he taken anything away from this? It only takes a few steps before you can grab him by the rotor blades again and throw him to the ground. And then you _really_ begin to hurt him.

You—lose yourself in it. A little. You’re just so angry, and so _hurt_ that you. Let yourself get carried away. By the time you force yourself to take a step back and look at him it’s—bad.

His face is… gone. You aren’t sure whether he even has optics under there anymore, beneath all the shattered metal and energon. You, you aren’t actually sure whether his brain module is still intact under all that. You _hope_ it’s intact. You. You don’t know if you’ll be able to live with yourself if it isn’t. One of his rotor blades trails behind him on the floor, twisted and warped and only connected to him by the smallest strip of metal. And you can see light from his spark pouring through the cracks you’ve left in his chest.

Your spark twists. Is he—Is he even alive? Have you _killed_ him? He’s—maybe technically alive if you can see his spark, but if you _can_ see it like this, he’s probably not going to be alive for long. Oh no. Oh no. You, you just—you only wanted him to _understand_.

You’re not even sure you can get him to a medic like this. You’ll do it, you will. Even if it means you go back to jail. You'll do it, But the medical school isn’t quite connected to the aerial academy, and you honestly don’t know if you can move him between the buildings before he—before he dies.

And then you remember the CR chamber. It’s new, brand new, but they wouldn’t have installed it if it didn’t work, right? And you’re a teacher, you have access. That’s, that’s still not good, but it’s better than trying to move him between buildings.

When you go to pick him up, that’s when you see what you did to his spinal strut. But you don’t have more than a moment to linger on, on the way his spine just _turns_ at a sharp right angle, because Rotorstorm jerks away from you, cringing and reaching up with shaking hands to cover what’s left of his face.

You force yourself to say, “I, I’m just—”

“ _Pleassse no_ —” His face is already a wreck, but even more energon bubbles out of his mouth when he tries to talk. “Plssse. ‘M sorry, _‘m sorry_ , pleasse don’, _please—”_

“I didn’t mean to—I’m, I’m going to get you help.”

When you reach for him, he tries to crawl away from you. It’s not really working very well with the mess you made out of him. But he tries. And when you actually get a hand on him, he flinches away from you and _sobs_.

He’s… afraid of you. He’s _terrified_.

At least he passes out when you actually pick him up. At least there’s that.

You carry him to the CR chamber. There isn’t anyone else around this late. Which is. Good. You mean, you assume anyone you ran into would have gotten Rotorstorm help too, but what if there was a delay? What if he _died_? You try to lay him down in the chamber as gently as you can. Even when he half-wakes up again and tries to push you away, cringes back into a corner and begs you not to hurt him.

You shut him in there and activate the chamber. He’ll… be fine now. He’ll be fine. These machines are expensive for a reason. This will get the job done.

You stay right where you are, watching the liquid fill the tank. It’s slower than you'd want. You want him submerged and healing _right now_ , not after however long it takes this thing to work.

How long has Rotorstorm been afraid of you? Maybe… just tonight? No, you, you can’t bring yourself to believe that. He was afraid of you before this, wasn’t he. And if tonight wasn’t the start of it, then— You wish— You wish that you could come up with some nice little lie to believe, but. It’s pretty obvious that he must have been afraid of you for a long, long time now.

Once Rotorstorm is safely submerged and you’re sure the machine is working, you stumble away. You could almost think you’re floating, except for the way it feels like your spark is being choked out of your body. You don’t even know what you’re doing. Where you’re going. You can’t stay here, though. You _can’t_. You aren’t safe to have around. _You can’t be trusted_. You need to leave, you need to _leave_.

You find yourself at the shuttle bay without a clear plan. But hey, as long as you’re here—You steal a shuttle. Bad decision? Maybe, but it’s still probably the best decision you’ve made all night. This isn’t going to go well, no matter what happens, but this will be _better_.

You’re in the air for more than an hour before you even think of calling the Council. Ha, yeah, that’s right. You’ve just deserted your post. This is definitely going to go well.

Calling the central Council office gets you put on hold. For a while. That’s fine, that’s fine, gives you a nice chance to reevaluate every encounter you’ve ever had _ever_ with Rotorstorm. Then it gives you plenty of time to figure out whether you ought to… you know. Take more permanent action on your own. Do the decent thing and remove yourself from the equation forever, right?

When someone finally answers your call, you get some obnoxious clerkish type who makes a point of ignoring you for a few extra seconds even after the video connection goes through. Nice. Whatever, you can’t even get yourself to care about this, not when you’re still processing everything else.

He has you give him your ID, serial code, all that, before he lets you say a word of your own. And then you’re blunt. “I’m switching jobs.”

The clerk stares flatly at you for a few seconds, just in case you didn’t already understand you were breaking the rules. Yeah, thanks, moving along now.

He glances down at your chest and says, “Had a bit of an _incident_ , did you?”

You look down. You’re—oh. Covered in energon. Bits of scrap metal too, caught in the little gaps between your plates. Bits of _Rotorstorm_. And the camera is probably only catching your head and shoulders. Your arms are pink all the way up to your elbows, and you realize, dully, that you’ve left Rotorstorm’s energon all over the shuttle controls.

You—oh. Never replied. Right. You’re not processing so great right now. But the clerk is already typing away on his computer. “It looks like there’s an open position that would accommodate someone with your alt mode and background. In a different province.” He turns back to you, looks you up and down again. “I assume that would be preferable?”

“Yeah,” you manage. “Probably best.”

“Mm.” He goes back to his computer. “You do have some government property that was in your possession contingent on your position with the Iaconian Aerial Academy in _particular_ —you’ll have to return that, of course.”

It’s good that you’ve had some practice at having a face again. You manage not to react. Some of that’s probably down to the way you feel numb all over, but still. You’re not giving the Council any satisfaction over this. But still, where the camera can’t see, you can’t stop yourself from clenching and unclenching your hands, over and over. Trying to, to remember. Remember what it’s like. Save up the memories for later. You never did get around to trying to build a clock.

The clerk is still typing. “Oh, and it does look like there is one other outstanding issue attached to your file here. You applied for a change of name, correct?”

You nod. You can’t quite string the words together to answer.

“Well, it looks like there was a mistake in how your paperwork was submitted. In every official capacity, I’m afraid you are still ‘Whirl.'” He turns back to you and smiles. “Would you like to try filing again?”

You shake your head. You’re not stupid. You know how to take a point when they cram it down your throat like this. You just let the clerk send you your new heading and fly off to let the Council take back your face and hands.

You do see Rotorstorm again. Not for a while, but—again.

You don’t try to contact him or anything. You aren’t that stupid. Or that cruel. You _know_ you need to stay away. No matter how badly you want to tell him how sorry you are. But you keep an optic on him. Heh, get it? Because one optic. Yeah. But you knew Rotorstorm was going to do great things, you _always_ knew. So you aren’t surprised when he does well for himself. You aren’t surprised at how well he does at Simanzi. And when he’s given the Novic Medal for Outstanding Valor, well, you always knew people were going to recognize how good he was sooner or later.

You argue with yourself about whether or not to go to the ceremony. Whether you _should_ go. But you do it. You have to burn through most of your leave to get to that side of the galaxy for it, but you—feel like you ought to be there. And hey, apparently you also feel like you have to get to the ceremony stupidly early and score yourself a seat right in the middle of the front row.

It’s dumb. You’re second guessing yourself from the moment you sit down. You don’t deserve a chance to tell him you’re sorry, not even indirectly like this. You don’t even know how he’s going to react, seeing you here. He’d be within his rights to demand that you get kicked out of the building. Off the planet. If he even recognizes you. You’re a little… _less_ than you were the last time you saw him. You ought to go, there isn’t any chance at all he’ll be happy to see you here. But, if you have some way, _any_ way, to even _begin_ apologizing—

You argue with yourself right up to the beginning of the ceremony. And promptly decide that this was the worst idea you’ve ever had, and you should absolutely not be here. So that’s great. But leaving now would be even worse, right? Primus, what if you left now and he _saw_ and he thought you were—you were starting like, like _before—_

So you stay put. You listen. You get to hear a proper account of Rotorstorm’s part in Simanzi, at least. News reports just aren’t the same. You can practically visualize the whole thing—you can see why he did so well. He always had a talent for seeing the big picture, and for managing lots of soldiers without letting anything slip through the cracks. Did you ever tell him that? You feel like you _must_ have, but—yeah, you’re not certain you ever managed to do anything at all right by him. You should have told him, at least. Lots of things you should have done.

You think that you catch him looking at you a few times through the ceremony. Though for most of it, you get the impression that he’s trying really hard to not look at you. That’s… fair. More than fair. As the ceremony goes on, you can’t shake the nasty little suspicion that starts eating at you that he’ll think this is, is some last jab at him, some last way you’re trying to tell him he’s not _good enough_. If you had the nerve, you’d get up and leave right now, but you’re pretty certain that would be even worse.

So you guess the last decent thing you can do for Rotorstorm is cheer for him, as loudly as you can. At the end of the ceremony, you’re the first one on your feet, even before the rest of the crowd stands to applaud. You force yourself to stay put where you are until the other ‘bots start milling around, talking and moving, with plenty of mechs pushing towards the stage to congratulate Rotorstorm in person. You let them shove you away, let the crowd move you along, until you’ve finally made your way to the nearest exit. And then, that’s it. You take one last look at him, standing up on the stage, and then you leave. For good.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/143254826696/and-all-in-spite-of-you-spockandawe)
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> [And an illustration (warning for blood, etc.)](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/144161690676/is-my-heart-still-breaking-over-rotorstorm-all-day)


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